Chloe (32 page)

‘Suits me down to the ground!' announced Fraser, winking at Chloë who stifled giggles by sucking in her cheeks and biting on them.

‘Right!' Mrs MacAdam said with no intention of leaving. It was only after Chloë and Fraser professed ample appreciation and heaped praise that she left, telling them that breakfast was served between seven and nine.

In the Green Room.

Chloë and Fraser could hardly wait to launch themselves on to the bed and thrust their faces deep into the cushions so they could release the laughter that had been so hard to keep at bay. Had Mrs MacAdam heard their muffled shrieks and snorts, she would have interpreted them as the effect the Gold Room had on young lovers. The effect on Chloë was a sneezing fit of staggering length which she attributed to the synthetic lavender room spray that had obviously doused all the furnishings. When she had ceased her sneezing and Fraser his sniggers, they lay side by side on the bed, out of breath, enjoying an intermittent titter.

‘Bathroom!' whispered Chloë and they scrambled off the bed to search for it. They found it behind a clapboard partition they had previously presumed to be the end of the room. The suite was yellow plastic and rather stained, the surrounding tiles a mustard colour bedecked every now and then with a marigold motif that proved to be stick-on; most were furling at the edges and Fraser could not resist peeling one off completely. He presented it to Chloë most solemnly and she accepted it graciously, taking it to her nose and finding that even the sticker smelt of lavender. She sneezed accordingly.

On their way out, they came across Mrs MacAdam twitching her curtains. She had changed into another tracksuit, this time violet and a little too small for her. Just as they were about to leave she called after them.

‘Mr and Mrs, er?' she began with raised eyebrows.

‘Buchanan?' Chloë suggested, not daring to catch Fraser's eye.

‘Aye,' Mrs MacAdam said with detectable relief, ‘Buchanan! You won't mind taking your shoes off and leaving them on the mat when you return?' Chloë and Fraser regarded their shoes automatically. ‘The carpets!' Mrs MacAdam explained in an unnecessary whisper. ‘I have slippers I can lend you,' she furthered.

‘Slippers won't be necessary,' Fraser assured her, imagining something pink and feathery, ‘and it will be no problem to take our shoes off.'

As Fraser and Chloë walked away, they heard tapping. They turned back and saw the net curtains twitching. More tapping. And then the net curtains were thrown over her head like a bride casting off her veil and Mrs MacAdam stood at the window waving expansively. Chloë and Fraser waved back while Fraser said ‘Mrs Mac
Mad
-am!' between his teeth. They continued. And so did the tapping. If they did not stop, turn and wave every four strides or so, they were challenged by indignant rapping.

‘You forgot your Scots!' reprimanded Fraser when they had turned the corner and he could feast his eyes on Murrayfield stadium and the hidden fantasies it promised him. ‘You said “Buchanan” in English. That'll not do, girl! If you're to be my Mrs, you must talk like a Buchanan at all times!'

‘Righty ho!' trilled Chloë, rolling her ‘r' and sounding not unlike Mrs MacAdam.

Chloë adored Edinburgh and thanked Jocelyn often, out loud and to herself.

‘If it wasn't for Jocelyn, I'd not be here,' she said to Fraser, both of them wearing moustaches from their cappuccinos. They raised their cups to her. ‘I'd probably never have seen Edinburgh at Festival time.'

‘And you'd have never set up with me,' Fraser said. Chloë marvelled at her good fortune.

A whole year. All for me. Treats and surprises. So much to discover, to search for, to find.

Fleetingly, Chloë even thought that if she had to live in a city, this was one she could tolerate quite happily.

But do you really want to live in a city?

Actually, no.

And what could you do here?

A job in student welfare at the University?

I hardly think so.

Perhaps just a simple waitressing job in New Town?

You were tired enough at the wedding at Braer. And spilled enough, too. And mightn't the granite depress you after a while?

Might it?

The long, cold and wet winters?

Spoilsport!

Just now, though, the city in the summer is treating Chloë very well. And so, at the moment, is Fraser.

Their first two days have been spent with every possible moment filled and sleep a low priority. They've chased the events of the Festival all over the city to watch, listen and be thoroughly entertained. From increasingly inventive mime artists, to acrobats from the Ukraine (Fraser gawped throughout and was speechless for a good hour afterwards); from children's orchestras to octogenarian one-man-bands; from the obligatory Peruvian pan-pipe ensembles, to tap-dancing Australian scaffolders (Fraser needed to go out for fresh air); from a girl called Kate with a cello that seemed human, to a man called Louis who performed madrigals on a toilet. Some acts made them laugh until it hurt, others were so painful that their toes curled involuntarily. An opera in Russian made them weep but so too did the lamentable efforts of a small Belgian with a flute.

Their mouths watered as they swooned their way around a sculpture exhibition constructed entirely from chocolate, and their mouths dried at the gut-wrenching but mind-blowing readings by a Bosnian poet. Every street corner, every café, every little passageway leading to the Royal Mile, to Grassmarket, Lawnmarket, Fruitmarket, to the Gardens – every square inch of Edinburgh – had been appropriated as a stage, and the whole world, it seemed, was represented. Though the Mexican cabaret singer was consistently half a tone out, she sang with such aplomb and with such determination that Fraser and Chloë leapt to their feet in standing ovation with the entire audience. Her passion for her craft, and her pluck, epitomized the spirit of the Festival.

Best of all were the acts that came out after dark, after midnight. Comedy that scraped the edge of bad taste, satire that made one wince, drag acts that made one blush. It was at Sharon Gri-la's show (a transvestite whose legs Chloë would quite happily have killed for) that Fraser fell hopelessly, utterly and selfishly in love. Or, rather, his version of it.

At first, Chloë thought someone was eyeing her up. Absorbed as she was in Sharon's rendition of ‘How Much is that Doggy in the Window', she could detect, too, the heat of another's gaze. She located the eyes but saw that they burned past her and straight at Fraser, just catching her cheek on their way. She nudged Fraser.

‘I know, I know,' he hissed, agitated, ‘don't go on! Don't make a scene! Can't have him getting the wrong idea about me, about us!'

In the interval, Fraser asked Chloë to excuse him. Chloë sent him on his way with a wink and a grin. He was obviously anxious and excited.

He never returned.

Chloë's cheek remained cold throughout the second half, for there was nobody's gaze grazing the side of it. The seat next to her was empty and, she believed, conspicuously so. She felt slightly uncomfortable but persuaded herself that it was not because she was prudish, but because she felt a little left out. When the show had finished she made her way, as casually as possible, to the foyer. Neither Fraser nor his mustachioed suitor were to be seen. As the audience dispersed, Chloë hung around wearing a deceptively nonchalant half-smile until only she remained and her facial contortion was unnecessary. She felt uneasy. What was she to do? Wait? Search? She decided to wait on the steps until two-thirty but only a Burns-reciting drunk passed by before passing out on the corner. Chloë's stomach turned, her spirit was low.

Suddenly, she went quite cold and yelped involuntarily.

‘He has the key!' she wailed to the night. ‘Fraser has the key.'

Chloë had money for a cab but black taxis in Edinburgh are a rare and restricted commodity, and during the Festival they are gold-dust indeed. She did not feel like hunting down a minicab but felt even less like walking. She could hear drunken revelry, raucous singing, a row, and she did not want to come across any of the perpetrators. She hated the city, hated Edinburgh, she did not feel at home, at ease here. She wanted to cry but she hadn't for months so why do it now? The last time she had cried had been for Jocelyn; by comparison, to cry for oneself seemed profane.

Jocelyn, Jocelyn, why am I here? What should I do and where should I go? What should I be? And where? How soon? And will I know? And how will I know?

Jocelyn wouldn't be answering her tonight but, ten minutes later, she sent a black cab.

Chloë hovered outside Mrs MacAdam's, willing the lace curtains to twitch. All was still. And hideously quiet. It was half-three in the morning. With butterflies in her stomach and a hard, painful tightness to her throat, Chloë rapped on the door as merrily as she could. And waited. And rapped again. And rang. And waited. Lights came on and in the silence of the street she could make out the muffled thuds of stairs being descended. All went quiet. Chloë knew the spyhole was being consulted. A chain rattled.

‘Mrs Buchanan!'

‘No key,' said Chloë forlornly, her eyes cast away from Mrs MacAdam, her Scots accent forgotten, ‘very sorry.' The door was opened and Chloë taken under Mrs MacAdam's arm. The landlady did not ask, she did not have to. She'd been a landlady long enough. She'd seen it before, been through it before. Men!

‘Tiff?' she suggested at the top of the stairs. Chloë nodded. ‘I'll go down and chain the door then!' she said in a kind, conspiratorial way. ‘Off with you to beddy-byes!' Chloë could not even manage a meek smile but she twitched one corner of her lip and it seemed to satisfy Mrs MacAdam.

Mr and Mrs A, can you hear me? I can't do all this by myself.

You might have to, Chloë.

F
raser did not show up for breakfast, Chloë did not feel like it. Mrs MacAdam made no comment. Chloë left the house and waved every four steps to the corner. She felt supremely irritated and desperately hurt, rather as she had with Gus, so she reacted in a similar way by taking herself off for a little excursion. The three late nights were taking their toll so she ventured no further than the Mound and the welcoming portal of the National Gallery. There, she ignored time and travelled the day away. She went to a peasant fête in the seventeenth century, gossiped with the court ladies in the eighteenth, and stood alongside a handsome duke from the nineteenth. One of the court ladies knew Mr and Mrs Andrews and instructed Chloë to send them her heartiest regards.

‘He was quite a catch!' she said ambiguously behind her fan, glazed eyes peeping coyly over the top of it.

‘I'm sure,' replied Chloë, adding that he seemed very happy and settled. The lady raised her eyebrow but said no more. Chloë decided not to dwell on it. Historically, it seemed that men, of whatever sexual persuasion, were weak-willed and far too fickle.

She lazed on the comfortable leather couches and allowed the reverential quiet of the gallery to soothe her. The invigilators were discreet and she did not notice them. She spent much time in each room, alternately walking and then sitting, peering close at the works and observing them from afar. She was lost and quite happy. Their worlds felt safe and preferable. She didn't have to acknowledge the here and now. She needn't even have been in Scotland.

Oh, but if not Scotland, where then?

She perused another room of paintings.

The wonderful thing about art is that these painted characters seem so at ease with their lot within the canvas.

We all paint our own pictures. It is knowing when to lay down the brush and be content with the result.

When Chloë met William after lunch, in a small anteroom before the grandiose display of Victorian painting, her heart was captured for the whole afternoon.

He was beautiful in an unassuming way; almond eyes set either side of a plain nose; a sensible, sensitive mouth, and softly waved hair parted slightly off-centre. He seemed older than his twenty-eight years, a strong chin and smooth brow suggested a kind but guarded man, a gentle disposition tinged perhaps by a certain sadness. For a while, they just gazed at each other, not speaking, not really needing to. Chloë did not want to. William could not. William Stuart, Earl of Dunreath, had died in Naples in 1862 of scarlet fever but the marble of his commemorative bust and the incisiveness of the sculptor's touch brought him to life with little need for imagination or persuasion at all.

Chloë touched her fingertips along his cheek and let them journey down, over and under his jaw to his neck. Closing her eyes, she let her whole hand travel down his neck to the dip at its base and stroke there awhile. When she opened her eyes he was gazing at her intently. He did not have to ask. Chloë stood on her tiptoes and came even closer to him, her eyelids dropping slightly with the weight of emotion. She kissed him very slowly, softly, on the side of his mouth and then travelled to the centre of it with her tongue tip. Slightly salty. She pressed her lips full against his, first cupping his lower lip, then his upper. Marble, it seemed, was far more luxurious than skin, and just as smooth and warm.

Encroaching footsteps prevented Chloë from lingering and brought her back to the present. William now stared beyond her and way past the young gallery guard who had sat down quietly. And though Chloë stood directly in front of him and fought hard against blinking, William's eyes, which appeared to have seen so much, now saw nothing. Chloë thought how Brett's stare had often been thoroughly stony, yet William's eyes, though stone, had just penetrated her more deeply than those of any other man. She could not bear the injustice that the centuries kept them apart, that William had died so young, that the presence of the young invigilator now prevented one final, vital kiss. She left the room with a soft, light step and did not turn to look back. In the gallery shop there was a postcard of William Stuart, Earl of Dunreath. But it was not him at all, merely a photograph of his marble portrait bust.